The Emigrant Trail by Geraldine Bonner (most read books TXT) 📕

of darkness, from each of which ran the narrow path of the buffalo. The line of hills, silver-washed and black-caverned, was like a rampart thrown across the entrance to the land of mystery, and they like the pygmy men of fairyland come to gain an entry. It was David who thought of this. It reminded him of Jack and the Beanstalk, where Jack, reaching the top of the vine, found himself in a strange country. Susan did not remember much about Jack. She was engrossed in recognizing the ravine, scanning the darkling hollows for the dwarf tree.

It was a steep, winding cut, the tree, halfway up its length, spreading skeleton arms against a sky clear as a blue diamond. They turned into it and began a scrambling ascent, the horses' hoofs slipping into the gutter that the buffaloes had trodden out. It was black dark in the depths with the moonlight slanting white on the walls.

"We're going now to find the giants," David called over his shoulder. "Doesn't this seem as if it ought to lead us up right in front of Blunderbore's Castle?"

"The buffalo runs are like trenches," she answered. "If you don't look out your horse may fall."

They tied their horses to the tree and climbed on foot to the levels above. On the earth's floor, unbroken by tree or elevation, there was not a shadow. It lay silver frosted in the foreground, darkening as it receded. In the arch above no cloud filmed the clearness, the moon, huge and mottled, dominating the sky. The silence was penetrating; not a breath or sound disturbed it. It was the night of the primitive world, which stirred the savage to a sense of the infinite and made him, from shell or clay or stone, carve out a God.

Without speaking they walked forward to a jutting point and looked down on the river. The current sparkled like a dancer's veil spread on the grass. They could not hear its murmur or see the shifting disturbance of its shallows, only received the larger impression of the flat, gleaming tide split by the black shapes of islands. David pointed to the two sparks of the camp fires.

"See, they're looking after us as if they were alive and knew they mustn't lose sight of us."

"They look quite red in the moonlight," she answered, interested.

"As if they belonged to man and a drop of human blood had colored them."

"What a queer idea. Let's walk on along the bluffs."

They turned and moved away from the lights, slipping down into the darkness of the channeled ravines and emerging onto the luminous highlands. The solemnity of the night, its brooding aloofness in which they held so small a part, chilled the girl's high self-reliance. Among her fellows, in a setting of light and action, she was all proud independence. Deprived of them she suffered a diminution of confidence and became if not clinging, at least a feminine creature who might some day be won. Feeling small and lonely she insensibly drew closer to the man beside her, at that moment the only connecting link between her and the living world with which her liens were so close.

The lover felt the change in her, knew that the barrier she had so persistently raised was down. They were no longer mistress and slave, but man and maid. The consciousness of it gave him a new boldness. The desperate daring of the suitor carried him beyond his familiar tremors, his dread of defeat. He thrust his hand inside her arm, timidly, it is true, ready to snatch it back at the first rebuff. But there was none, so he kept it there and they walked on. Their talk was fragmentary, murmured sentences that they forgot to finish, phrases trailing off into silence as if they had not clear enough wits to fit words together, or as if words were not necessary when at last their spirits communed. Responding to the instigation of the romantic hour the young girl felt an almost sleepy content. The arm on which she leaned spoke of strength, it symbolized a protection she would have repudiated in the practical, sustaining sunshine, but that now was very sweet.

David walked in a vision. Was it Susan, this soft and docile being, close against his side, her head moving slowly as her eyes ranged over the magical prospect? He was afraid to speak for fear the spell would break. He did not know which way his feet bore him, but blindly went on, looking down at the profile almost against his shoulder, at the hand under which his had slid, small and white in the transforming light. His silence was not like hers, the expression of a temporary, lulled tranquility. He had passed the stage when he could delay to rejoice in lovely moments. He was no longer the man fearful of the hazards of his fate, but a vessel of sense ready to overflow at the slightest touch.

It came when a ravine opened at their feet and she drew herself from him to gather up her skirts for the descent. Then the tension broke with a tremulous "Susan, wait!" She knew what was coming and braced herself to meet it. The mystical hour, the silver-bathed wonder of the night, a girl's frightened curiosity, combined to win her to a listening mood. She felt on the eve of a painful but necessary ordeal, and clasped her hands together to bear it creditably. Through the perturbation of her mind the question flashed--Did all women feel this way? and then the comment, How much they had to endure that they never told!

It was the first time any man had made the great demand of her. She had read of it in novels and other girls had told her. From this data she had gathered that it was a happy if disturbing experience. She felt only the disturbance. Seldom in her life had she experienced so distracting a sense of discomfort. When David was half way through she would have given anything to have stopped him, or to have run away. But she was determined now to stand it, to go through with it and be engaged as other girls were and as her father wished her to be. Besides there was nowhere to run to and she could not have stopped him if she had tried. He was launched, the hour had come, the, to him, supreme and awful hour, and all the smothered passion and hope and yearning of the past month burst out.

Once she looked at him and immediately looked away, alarmed and abashed by his appearance. Even in the faint light she could see his pallor, the drops on his brow, the drawn desperation of his face. She had never in her life seen anyone so moved and she began to share his agitation and wish that anything might happen to bring the interview to an end.

"Do you care? Do you care?" he urged, trying to look into her face. She held it down, not so much from modesty as from an aversion to seeing him so beyond himself, and stammered:

"Of course I care. I always have. Quite a great deal. You know it."

"I never knew," he cried. "I never was sure. Sometimes I thought so and the next day you were all different. Say you do. Oh, Susan, say you do."

He was as close to her as he could get without touching her, which, the question now fairly put, he carefully avoided doing. Taller than she he loomed over her, bending for her answer, quivering and sweating in his anxiety.

The young girl was completely subdued by him. She was frightened, not of the man, but of the sudden revelation of forces which she did not in the least comprehend and which made him another person. Though she vaguely understood that she still dominated him, she saw that her dominion came from something much more subtle than verbal command and imperious bearing. All confusion and bewildered meekness, she melted, partly because she had meant to, partly because his vehemence overpowered her, and partly because she wanted to end the most trying scene she had ever been through.

"Will you say yes? Oh, you must say yes," she heard him imploring, and she emitted the monosyllable on a caught breath and then held her head even lower and felt an aggrieved amazement that it was all so different from what she had thought it would be.

He gave an exclamation, a sound almost of pain, and drew away from her. She glanced up at him, her eyes full of scared curiosity, not knowing what extraordinary thing was going to happen next. He had dropped his face into his hands, and stood thus for a moment without moving. She peered at him uneasily, like a child at some one suffering from an unknown complaint and giving evidence of the suffering in strange ways. He let his hands fall, closed his eyes for a second, then opened them and came toward her with his face beatified. Delicately, almost reverently, he bent down and touched her cheek with his lips.

The lover's first kiss! This, too, Susan had heard about, and from what she had heard she had imagined that it was a wonderful experience causing unprecedented joy. She was nearly as agitated as he, but through her agitation, she realized with keen disappointment that she had felt nothing in the least resembling joy. An inward shrinking as the bearded lips came in contact with her skin was all she was conscious of. There was no rapture, no up-gush of anything lovely or unusual. In fact, it left her with the feeling that it was a duty duly discharged and accepted--this that she had heard was one of life's crises, that you looked back on from the heights of old age and told your grandchildren about.

They were silent for a moment, the man so filled and charged with feeling that he had no breath to speak, no words, if he had had breath, to express the passion that was in him. Inexperienced as she, he thought it sweet and beautiful that she should stand away from him with averted face. He gazed at her tenderly, wonderingly, won, but still a thing too sacred for his touch.

Susan, not knowing what to do and feeling blankly that something momentous had happened and that she had not risen to it, continued to look on the ground. She wished he would say something simple and natural and break the intolerable silence. Finally, she felt that she could endure it no longer, and putting her hand to her forehead, pushed back her hair and heaved a deep sigh. He instantly moved to her all brooding, possessive inquiry. She became alarmed lest he meant to kiss her again and edged away from him, exclaiming hastily:

"Shall we go back? We've been a long time away."

Without speech he slid his hand into the crook of her arm and they began to retrace their steps. She could feel his heart beating and the warm, sinewy grasp of his fingers clasped about hers. The plain was a silver floor for their feet, in the starless sky the